Minster Kalmeta hosted Serbia’s Minister for Telecommunication and Information Society

On Thursday, the Croatian Minister of the Sea, Transport and Infrastructure Božidar Kalmeta held talks with Serbia's Minister for Telecommunications and Information Society, Jasna Matić, on the situation in the telecommunications sectors of their respective countries.

Minister Kalmeta further explained the fully liberalized Croatian telecommunication market adding how there are three operators in the mobile telephony and nine operators working in fixed telephony.

He also informed his Serbian colleague about relevant Croatian legislation, saying that it was fully adjusted to the electronic communications standards of the European Union.

Kalmeta pointed out that as a candidate country for EU membership, Croatia would likely close the Information Society and Media policy chapter within its EU accession talks before the end of this year.

As another very important step, Kalmeta mentioned the development of broadband access and the Government’s plan to achieve a broadband access density in non-developed areas, not less than 12%, i.e. half a million broadband access applications by the end of the year.

Minister Matić was also very interested in the process of introducing digital TV broadcasting in the Republic of Croatia. Minister Kalmeta said that analog TV broadcasting would be a matter of the past by the year 2011.

Minister Matić said her country had liberalized the mobile telephony sector and that the same process should now ensue in fixed telephony, adding that this was why Serbia was interested in Croatia's experience.